All posts tagged Tate Modern

The Dia Art Foundation last week announced the appointment of Jessica Morgan, a 45-year old curator at the Tate Modern in London, as its next director. Morgan replaces Philippe Vergne, who left earlier this year to become director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.

In her new position, Morgan will be responsible for Dia:Beacon, the foundation’s sprawling museum in a former Nabisco box-printing factory in the Hudson Valley, and for “reinvigorating” Dia’s presence in New York City, where it is raising money to create a new space in Chelsea. She is “at the center of the global conversation on contemporary art,” said Nathalie de Gunzburg, chairman of Dia’s board of trustees.

Morgan, who is British, starts the job in January. She spoke with the Journal over email about her roots in the field and the artists she has her eye on. Read More »

Kazimir Malevich likely knew he was going to shock the public when he painted a black square on a white canvas in 1915 and hung it in a place usually reserved for sacred art. On July 16, London’s Tate Modern will explore the career of this radical artist, whose Suprematist movement, with its abstract geometric forms and lack of overt meaning, redefined modern art.

“Black Square” was exhibited along with dozens of his other suprematist paintings at the Last Futurist Exhibition of Painting 0.10 in present-day St. Petersburg, where it occupied a high corner of the room. The painting is in Moscow and too fragile to travel, but visitors to the Tate will get to see how Malevich returned repeatedly to this image—versions from 1923 and 1929 will be on view—at this retrospective of the artist, his first in 30 years. Read More »

New Delhi municipal authorities recently told the Times of India that they had approved ambitious plans to convert the Indraprastha power plant into an art gallery modeled on the Tate Modern in London. The coal burning plant, the city’s oldest, loomed blackly over the Yamuna River for some thirty-two years before being decommissioned in fall 2009.

Earlier this week, a pair of agents with the General Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands confiscated a manuscript that was part of anexhibit at the Tate Modern museum in London, titled “Authority to Remove.”

The manuscript was written by New York artist Jill Magid, a sculptor and performance artist who is known for burrowing into Big Brother-like institutions. Magid’s show at the Tate, which ended Sunday, revolved around a manuscript she wrote about the three years she spent interviewing agents and creating art for the Dutch intelligence agency. (See full story here.)

Some of her artwork is now displayed in the agency’s new headquarters in the Hague, but agency officials balked last year when she told them she was also writing a novel about her experience. Eventually, the artist and the agency agreed to a détente: She could exhibit her book manuscript once –- under glass and therefore out of reach -– but afterward the agency was allowed to come claim it for good. Read More »

The Tate Modern’s “Pop Life: Art in a Material World” exhibition, which officially opens to the public tomorrow, is already stirring up controversy.

According to a spokeswoman from the museum, a famous 1983 piece by Richard Prince called “Spiritual America” –- which features a 10 year-old, naked Brooke Shields in a bathtub -– has been closed off to the public.

According to the Telegraph, officers from the Metropolitan Police are investigating whether the image breaches the Obscene Publications Act. The Tate’s show features several well-known –- and provocative –- works from artists like Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst that address issues of celebrity, sex and money. Much of the work in the show is from the 1980s and 90s. Read More »

Two weeks ago, actress and singer Patti LuPone grabbed a cell phone out of the hand of an audience member who was texting during a performance of her current play, "Shows for Days." The bold move led to an outpouring of support from fans fed up with glowing screens. Ms. LuPone gives us her five rules of theater etiquette.